Tag Archives: Gumbo Filé

Gumbo Filé

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The sassafras tree is easy to spot, with its three different leaf patterns (unlobed oval, bilobed (mitten-shaped), and trilobed (three-pronged). It’s commonly seen anywhere east of the Mississippi basin. As kids we would dig up the roots to make sassafras tea. The roots, as most people know, were also the original flavor for root beer, that is, before being banned in 1960 as a possible carcinogen.

When I was growing up in Louisiana, a purchased powder of the leaves (safe for culinary use) was on our kitchen table any night we had gumbo, added as a sprinkled garnish to each bowl.

When I moved to Tennessee in 1984, gumbo filé (FEE-lay) was initially hard to find on the grocery shelf. I would pick up a bottle anytime I visited the motherland. Each jar of the fine powder — which imparts an earthy flavor that some compare to thyme — lasted me a couple of years before growing stale or being used up completely. Since 1999, after moving to the farm, that changed. Here, we have plenty of sassafras trees, so providing my own filé has become an easy option. And, of course, the commercial product is now easily found at any grocery store.

Making filé is straightforward and simple. It’s one of those perfect homestead projects that allow you to step outside of the stream of commerce, for a moment anyway, and provide for yourself. The process is as easy as harvesting the leaves, drying them, and then pulverizing into a powder.

Last weekend I took to the woods a large container that had held a 100-pound protein tub for sheep. In the work of 10 minutes, I filled the tub with leaves and returned to the barn. Taking a plastic kiddie pool (which we had used as a water source for a flock of ducks), I spread out the leaves to dry in the sun. Today I’ll strip the stems, crush the leaves, and then jar the powder. That full tub will yield only a few ounces of filé. Still, it will be more than enough to enhance a couple of winters’ worth of chicken gumbo.

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Reading this weekend: Hogs Are Up, stories of the land, with digressions (Wes Jackson).

Fruit Loops, Root Beer and Gumbo Filé

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The weather has mercifully turned colder with a seasonal low of 37 degrees this morning. In anticipation of this change we have been rushing around the past couple of weeks harvesting the last muscadines and scuppernongs, green tomatoes, hatch peppers and herbs. Yesterday in a fit of derring-do I climbed on top of the equipment shed, leaned far out, and harvested the last of the figs from our twenty-foot tall tree. But, for this man, and I speak for no other, cold weather has me thinking of food: stews of all sorts, chili verde, goulash, bean soups, greens, a bowl of red and of course gumbo.

Last night a first time making the Alsatian dish Choucroute. A real show stopper of a dish that regretfully only the two of us dined on and experienced the joy of eating. It included several pounds of freshly fermented sauerkraut, ham hocks, smoked pork kielbasa, cured ham, onions, clove, coriander seeds, and a bottle of homemade muscadine rose wine. A quick hour and half in the oven, served on a big platter with fresh boiled Kennebec potatoes and we could call it a farm to table dinner since most of the ingredients came from our farm and gardens.

But Friday night, and this is where the title of this piece comes into the picture, we had gumbo. Made with one of our Saxony ducks and some pork sausage, a good gumbo is good for what ails you. A few weeks back while looking over our stock of spices a moment of horror when I found our Zatarain’s stash of gumbo filé was dangerously low. For the uninitiated, filé powder is the final garnish atop any bowl of gumbo. A natural thickening agent, with a slight hint of bay leaf and spice it is indispensable.

An hour into Knoxville to find a place carrying filé, made from ground sassafras leaves. Or, hang on; we have a grove of sassafras trees by our drive. So trooping out to the grove I harvested enough to fill a two gallon bucket. These leaves were spread out on the drying racks in the greenhouse. Once dry I cleaned them of twigs and stems and pulverized the remaining leaves into a powder. Hard to describe, if you haven’t had the commercial spice, how fresh and aromatic my home ground filé smelled and tasted. But farewell Zatarain’s, you will not be missed.

What a great tree is the sassafras: a critical ingredient for gumbo from the leaves, root beer from the bark and roots. What more could you ask for? Ah, how about those fruit loops. For those who know, in early spring the emerging little curled leaves of the sassafras tree taste remarkably like Fruit Loops cereal. And that is a good thing to know if Western Civilization crashes into the dustbin of history. Who wouldn’t want a natural alternative to one of our crowning industrial achievements?